Applications and Characters

In order to be considered for this game, you need to offer me three (3) valid character pitches: one will be your first character, one will be your backup character, and one will be an offering to the "common pool" of characters anyone may choose to play. If you're interested in joining but need help coming up with pitches, the price of admission is three canon characters you're interested in playing, regardless of availability; please do not message me about joining this game with less than this.

A valid character pitch consists of:

• Name: The character's legal name and/or hero/villain name, plus the name(s) of the canon character they are based on.
• Twist: One or two sentences  about how and why the character is different from the canon character.
• Profile: A couple (1-3) of other characters your character loves/trusts in their home timeline, a couple of characters your character hates in their home timeline, and some vague ideas of things your character feels very strongly about.

A valid character pitch requires all three items, and a valid application requires at least three character pitches; I will not consider any player that does not meet these requirements.

Examples:

Shaman America, Stephen Rojhaz (Captain America, Doctor Strange)
Twist: In the wake of a disastrous Civil War, the United States government turns to Native American magic to heal the country. A century later, Shaman America has passed down his mantle three times, only to die of heart failure in battle against renegade Asgardians.
Profile: Shaman America believes very passionately in the "American ideal" of liberty and equality. His closest friends are his apprentices: James Barnes, Sam Wilson, and Shannon Carter. His greatest enemies are the Nazi sorcerer, Johann Schmidt, other Nazi occultists, and Dormammu.

Red Goblin, Nathan Pryor (Cable)
Twist: Cable's mother wins her "custody dispute" against the X-Men, raising her son to fight the demon N'Astirh and his forces... eventually allying with the enemy of her enemy, Norman Osborn.
Profile: Nathan is very close to his older stepbrother, Harry (Green Goblin) and their friend, Spider-Man; he has a very bitter and unresolved relationship with his mother, his stepfather, and his biological father's family, the X-Men.

Character Guidelines

Because of the Mission-based format of an eXiles game and the lack of a consistent setting from Mission to Mission, there are certain character types that are poor fits for this game and are probably not going to be allowed under any circumstances:

Too Obscure: The normal instinct in a superhero game is to jump on a deep cut character or even an Original Character (OC) in order to stand out from the other players. In the case of an eXiles game this is the wrong instinct; much of the game's drama revolves recognizing and being recognized by the other PCs and by the rotating cast of NPCs you'll be meeting in timeline after timeline. You are relying upon your chosen character's history and reputation across the Multiverse to inform how people will react to you in-play.

By all means, play with the characters you most want to play with, but if you want to stand out, pick characters everyone else will recognize and put fresh spins on them with your Twists. If you want to flex, pick some minor event from your favorite character's history and change it in a way that radically changes the character.

Too Powerful: Some characters are just too powerful for certain Missions to provide appropriate challenges for... and it's not always the Godlike Strength and Godlike Durability that are the problem. Generally speaking, characters that are as physically powerful as The Hulk or Thor are too powerful; any Sorcerer Supreme or Doctor Doom or omega-level reality warper like the Scarlet Witch is too powerful; omega-level telepaths and telekinetics like Charles Xavier, Jean Grey, or Nate Grey are too powerful.

None of these characters is entirely off-limits, if their Twist limits their powers to manageable levels. This is at my sole discretion.

Too Disruptive: Killing is always going to be an option in this game; whether or not the PCs are going to resort to killing is between them and between you as players. Characters who are incapable recognizing the option not to kill aren't compatible with characters who are looking for other options. This means that almost any pitch with Frank Castle or Cletus Kasady is off the table and characters like Sabretooth or Bullseye who fluctuate between "ruthless mercenaries" and "bloodthirsty psychos" need to lean hard toward versions of the character that can control themselves.

This also applies to any other behavior that will make teamwork and/or completing Missions impossible, like most modern versions of Deadpool or Madcap or characters known for Fourth Wall breaking. Older versions of Deadpool, or Howard the Duck, or She-Hulk are perfectly acceptable as long as it's in-character for them to stay in-character.

Too "Cutesy": Into the Spider-Verse had Spider-Ham; Saladin Ahmed's run on Exiles had Lil Wolvy. We will not be doing any of that. Underage characters like Molly Hayes/Hernandez and Riri Williams might be permitted (at my sole discretion) but I'm not going to pull punches for their sake; don't ask to play a character you're not comfortable watching suffer.

Original Characters: In case the point about playing mainstream characters wasn't clear enough, any character you invented yourself is infinitely obscure. I will only consider OCs if they are intimately and (IC and OOC) obviously related to 616 or MCU A-list heroes and/or villains, and if I think their existence outweighs the need for a more recognizable character.

I also will not consider a pitch for an OC unless the three (3) standard pitch requirement is already met.

This isn't to say that those characters are disallowed, only that their Twist has to remove them from those categories: Mr. Fixit, a less-powerful Doom, and a "cured" Cletus Kasady are all valid.

Extra Credit:

There are also some character types I prefer. I won't show you preferential treatment in-game, but characters I like better have a better chance of getting in.

• Characters based on non-616/non-MCU versions of 616/MCU characters.
• Villains.
• Characters whose "alignment" is flipped from their canonical version.
• Spider-Man (any) and Spider-Man's friends or foes.
• Weapon X, Weapon Plus, Deathlok, super-soldiers in general.
• Symbiotes.
• "Street-level" mystics and cosmics.

Players may switch characters between Missions. The more advance notice I get, the better I can give them a good sendoff and prepare to introduce the new character. Any accumulated XP will be lost.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:25, Mon 11 Jan 2021.